Advice for buying cameras and lenses

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Buying Photographic Lenses

Thanks once again for joining us back on the blog and the next question that I've had through is about what my advice might be for buying cameras and lenses. Thanks for very much for taking the time to write in. My advice would be to invest your money in lenses. That is the number one priority. And I would look to buy a very cheap body for the camera cause the camera these days will have probably a minimum of ten megapixel. And realistically, you're probably not going to need much more than that when your starting out. Invest in your lenses, and what I mean by that is to get the best possible lenses you can afford.  If you can afford L series lenses for Canon, then sure I would get that, but you can also just buy cheap prime lenses for your camera. Prime lenses are very, very good quality lenses and they are going to get you your best results. Even the L series zoom lenses aren't going to be as good as good prime lenses. Make sure that if you're going to buy second-hand lenses, make sure they come from a reasonable source that you respect and that you've heard about. Check that they don't have any fungus in them, that they're not cloudy looking, and that they've been generally looked after.

Buying Camera Bodies

If you're going to get a second hand camera body, I would make sure that you can go and see the camera, visit the person that is selling it first. Check it out yourself. Take some photos on it. Make sure it works both in its stills capacity and its video capacity. Take a flash gun with you, put it in the hot shoe. Make sure the hot shoe works. I've bought cameras in the past that have come from very reputable sources that the hot shoe hasn't worked 'right from out of box' so I've sent them back. But if you buy a body second hand, usually you buy it sold as seen so you don't have the option of returning it, so make sure you check it out thoroughly whilst you've got it in your hand and before you part with your money.

In terms of lenses, just check the lens mounts, make sure they're not damaged or broken or look like they've been dropped and check the filter thread as well just to make sure that they've not been dented over, cos you'll not get a filter on the top of that otherwise.

So again my advice is to invest in lenses first. If you can't afford a DSLR, then have a look around. I don't know much about the compact or point and shoot cameras market, but my advice would be to try and buy something with a good lens on it, Sony have Zeiss lenses and they make quality optics.

Once again thanks very much for your question and if you've got any comments, leave them below for me. See you next time.

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